MyFitnessPal Maintenance Mode

For those that don’t know, I’ve been using MyFitnessPal for the past 9 months to track my food. With the help of that app, I’ve lost over 20 pounds and am now at my goal weight, so last week I switched over to maintenance mode. That means I’m no longer eating to lose weight, but to maintain my weight, so my calorie count is higher. Like, 500 calories higher, which is huge. Is it hard to stay in maintenance mode? Surprisingly yes, right now, and here’s why.

When I exercise, MyFitnessPal gives me extra exercise calories. I usually try to eat most of it back because my body needs the extra calories. Now that I’m in maintenance mode, that number is much higher, and I find myself wondering how and whether I should eat it all back. That leads me to my next problem…

I feel like because I’m in maintenance mode now, I can eat whatever I want again, which is the completely wrong way of thinking. I had to eat healthier to get to where I am now, and if I want to stay that way, I need to continue! I’m allowing myself to indulge a little more now when I wouldn’t before, while trying to stay under my calories and especially my sugar. Doing my week-long Daniel Fast was great because I was snacking on healthy fruits, but now I’m back to my “indulgent” trail mix (AKA 25 chocolate chips to like 3 nuts. No, seriously, this bag is crazy). I don’t have a lot of impulse control when it comes to buying snacks, so I think I just need to bunker down and have a rotating list of healthy snacks.

I have to say though, this past week has gone well. I think I actually gained 0.4 pounds, which obviously is nothing, so I’m just making sure I stay within 2 pounds of my goal weight and I’ll be good to go! It feels great to have gotten to where I want to be, and I don’t plan on sliding right back up the weight scale again. I’m sure another update to this will come in the next month, to see if maintenance mode is still working for me!